THE LIBRARY
OF
THE UNIVERSITY
OF TEXAS
AT
AUSTIN
LESTINE
AS THE HOPE OF JEWISH REFUGEES
three Addresses Delivered at National Conference
of United Palestrae Appeal, Washington, D, C.
A SOLUTION FOR THE PALESTINE PROBLEM
KU Hon. Alfred Duff Cooper
THE CHALLENGE OF INTOLERANCE
Alt*. Justice Frank Murphy
PALESTINE AND THE WORLD JEWISH CRISIS
Dr. Abba Hillel Silver
u
:'
PA LESTI NE
AS THE HOPE OF JEWISH REFUGEES
Three Addresses Delivered at National Conference
of United Palestine A-pfeal, Washington, D. C.
A Solution for the Palestine Problem
Rt. Hon. Alfred Duff Cooper
The Challenge of Intolerance
Mr. Justice Frank Murphy
Palestine and the World Jewish Crisis
Dr. Abba Hillel Silver
Issued by
UNITED PALESTINE APPEAL
I I I FIFTH AVENUE NEW YORK CITY
A SOLUTION FOR THE
PALESTINE PROBLEM
AS THE central American instrument for
i. the rebuilding of Palestine, the United
Palestine Appeal, which combines the fund-
raising efforts of the Palestine Foundation
Fund and the Jewish National Fund, has helped
make possible the establishment of a Jewish
community of 500,000 in Palestine. In 1940 the
United Palestine Appeal will be called upon
to provide larger resources than ever before,
if Palestine is to absorb successfully 35,000
refugees who came to its shores in 1939 and
thousands of others who continue to find a
home there, despite the war.
By the RT. HON. ALFRED DUFF COOPER,
Former First Lord of the British Admiralty
FOR centuries the Jews, wandering from their own country, have
ever longed to return to it. This is no new movement, because
individuals at all periods of history have felt this nostalgia for the
home of their origin. It has gone on from generation to generation.
It has sprung up first in one land, then in another. It has never been
universal, bur it has never been extinguished and, deep in the hearts of
millions, it has burnt, an enduring flame.
Finally, after the last world catastrophe, it seemed that the time had
come when this long dream was going to come true. At last, a great
country declared in an historic declaration in favor of making a reality
of what had so long been only a vision. And, as the result of the peace
treaties that were concluded at the end of the war, not one country
only, but all those who were parties to the treaty, pledged themselves
to use their best offices to create a Jewish National Home in Palestine.
Twenty years have passed since then. These have been twenty years,
on the whole, of tragic failure, but there have been exceptions to that
failure. Here and there there have been bright instances, here and there
there have been signs of promise, here and there there have been hopes
fulfilled.
The Success of Jewish Palestine
What has been the history of this experiment during the twenty
years? The Jews who have flocked back to Palestine have performed
there what is little less than a miracle — they have made the desert
flower; they have built up wealth where there was poverty; they are
still employed upon that great task. They have increased the popula-
tion wherever they have gone. Not only their own Jewish population,
4 A SOLUTION FOR THE PALESTINE PROBLEM
but the native population who were there at the time have multiplied
owing to the increase of wealth and the increase of employment. Thus,
surely, the work of the Jews in Palestine during these sad twenty years
has been an exception to the many failures by which that period has
been marked.
What has been the result of that success? What is, alas, too com-
monly in this world the result of success? It has been to provoke opposi-
tion, envy and jealousy, that envy and jealousy sometimes fermented
from other lands for political reasons, having no connection with the
local dispute. That envy and jealousy has assumed proportions which
have led to violence and to bloodshed. For a long time incidents of
increasing seriousness have marked that endeavor to hinder the work
that is being performed, to put spokes in the wheel, to prevent the
carrying to its natural conclusion of a wonderful beginning. And, as
we all know, the result has been enforcement of stern measures, mili-
tary occupation, violence, bloodshed, death, execution— a tragic tale.
It seemed that toward the end of this summer a new era was going
to be introduced. There had been, as the result of these misfortunes,
a special Royal Commission sent out to Palestine to inquire into the
conditions, and to report— a commission of distinguished Englishmen,
who delivered the report which, in fact, gave complete satisfaction to
nobody, and which, therefore, was commended as being posstblv fair
to all. V }
At any rate, the Zionists, although they could not be expected to
receive it with enthusiasm— I remember Dr. Weizmann himself de-
scribed it to me as "Zionism without Zion," for Jerusalem was to be
excluded from the part that was to be handed over to the Zionists—
nevertheless showed their moderation, their reasonableness, by agree-
ing to accept it and to do all that lay in their power to implement a
program which was certainly fraught with difficulties, but which was
at least an honest endeavor to find a solution for one of the most
difficult problems of the age.
That solution has never been implemented; it was decided not to
carry out the recommendations of that Commission which the Zionists
had accepted and which the Arabs had refused.
By the RT. HON. ALFRED DUFF COOPER 5
There were further inquiries, further hesitations, further uncer-
tainty, and there is nothing worse in any political situation than uncer-
tainty, because all the time that people are waiting for a decision the
situation invariably goes from bad to worse.
The Program of the White Paper
And then there came, this summer, a new program, contained once
more in a White Paper. I confess that to my mind that program was
difficult to defend. I went so far as to protest against it in the House
of Commons. It seemed to me that far from assisting in any way
toward the solution of the Jewish question, it was going to create a
new Jewish question in Palestine; that, after being tempted, lured, and
encouraged to return to that country, thousands of Jews were eventu-
ally to be left to their fate, remaining for all time a minority. Par*,
ticularly those clauses which referred to immigration seemed to me
singularly unfair, for the principle that inspired them was simply this:
because, owing to terrible events in Europe, some destitute, unhappy
refugees had succeeded in circumventing the regulations and in getting
into Palestine without having gone through the proper legal forms,
therefore those who had made no such attempt, those who were
anxious to carry out the law and to abide by it were going to be
prevented from returning to that land. To punish those who had
observed the law for the crimes of those who break it, seems to me
the opposite of justice or equity.
I think I said in the House of Commons that it was just as if a
schoolmaster were to say to his class, "Half the boys are playing truant
today and are not here; therefore those who have come to school shall
stay twice as long and be punished."
Now there is a lull. Now, while the whole of Europe is thrown into
the melting pot; now, while catastrophe upon the largest scale is
looming up before an ever-darkening sky — now, peace, comparative
peace, has fallen upon Palestine. To the credit of all concerned,
nobody wishes to disturb Great Britain or cause her unnecessary anxiety
or unnecessary responsibilities for the use of her armed forces in a
6 A SOLUTION FOR THE PALESTINE PROBLEM
time such as this. The lull surely should be taken advantage of in
order to reconsider the whole question, and in order to arrive at a
policy that shall be sound, one that can be implemented, and then
one that will ultimately solve the whole problem.
I think that that is the duty of those who are responsible for the
government of that country at this time, those who are responsible for
the carrying out of the mandate.
It is all very well to say that when a great country is engaged in war,
everybody's activities are so fully occupied that they have not time for
this, that and the other. That is not the case in England today. There
are hundreds and thousands of men who have plenty of leisure, dis-
tinguished men, men who have occupied the most responsible posi-
tions, men who can look back upon careers which would enable them
to give invaluable advice to those in authority. There are plenty o£
people in England today who have plenty of time to give to the con-
sideration of the future of Palestine.
It may not be — indeed, I do not think it is — the time to attempt to
put into force any new decisions, but it is the time when the new
decisions should be prepared, so that they shall not be rushed through
too hastily when the duty and the task of peace-making is finally faced.
The Failure of British Administration
Now, in my opinion, the British Administration of Palestine has
failed. It has failed, not, I think, because it was undertaken in any-
thing but the right spirit. I am convinced that those who have been
responsible for the administration of Palestine these twenty years have
deliberately attempted to find some way of dealing with the situation
which should give absolute fairness to both portions of the popula-
tion, to treat Jew and Arab alike, to encourage them both to live on
friendly terms and to hope that they, amongst themselves, will be able
to share equally, fifty-fifty, in the government and in the control of the
production, the wealth and the future of the country. That was the
principle that lay at the basis of Great Britain's policy.
I believe the policy has failed, not only, or certainly not principally,
because of any mistake of administrators on the spot, though they may
By the RT. HON, ALFRED DUFF COOPER 7
not have been perfect, and though some of them may have been biased
in one direction or the other. I believe it has not failed for that reason
nor has it failed through any graver international causes. It has failed
because the basis itself was unsound and because in that particular
corner of the earth, as in nearly every other country throughout the
world, one race has got to be the dominant race and one race has got
to be the inferior. The dominant race may, should, and no doubt
would treat the other race with consideration and fairness, give them
access to every path to success, to fame and to honor; but where there
are deep divisions, not only racial but religious, there must be one side
which feels that here it is their right to say what shall be done. Having
said what is right, and having carried out what they believe to be fair,
they can look the whole world in the face and ask of the whole world
to judge whether they have dealt fairly with their neighbor or no.
But, so long as there are two races on exactly level terms, holding
such deeply different views on some of the fundamental facts of life,
both in this world and the next; while those two races seek, even with
the best will in the world, to share quite evenly in the control of the
country, they are seeking to attain the impossible.
In this period of the world's distress, we should not fix our aims too
high. We should not hope for the impossible. We should not endeavor
to produce a state of affairs that so far as I am aware has never existed
in any land, a state in which two nations, two ancient nations, share
equally the rights, the privileges and the powers that men most desire
in any civilized community.
A Fake Policy
This policy has failed not because it was not sincerely adopted, or has
not been sincerely carried out, but because it was a policy false in its
foundations.
The next inevitable conclusion must be that in future the manda-
tory power must regard this question with bias upon one side or the
other They have tried to treat it without bias, without favoritism,
and they have failed. Therefore, in the future they must adopt some
bias Then comes the question: On which side should the bias be? The
8 A SOLUTION FOR THE PALESTINE PROBLEM
old story, about' which there has been so much dispute, has been gone
over often regarding the promises given in the stress of the Great War;
the promises given by this government or that, the letters that were
written, the speeches that were made, the notes that were exchanged.
It has been maintained that Great Britain, in her endeavor to keep
her promises to both sides, has broken them to both. That may be
true, but that is ancient history; that belongs to a period which is
already receding into the past.
The mere fact, if it is a fact—and I maintain it is— that every effort
has been made to carry out all those promises, even when they were in
conflict with one another; the fact that an effort has been made to
carry them out renders them now part and parcel with the time to
which they belong, something that need no longer be so closely and
meticulously regarded with a legalistic eye.
Now, let us consider what has happened in the interval, what has
happened since igi4 to the two peoples most closely concerned.
The Arab Position — 1914-1940
In 1914 there was hardly any territory which the Arabs could call
their own. They were almost throughout the Near East subject to
Turkish suzerainty. Since 1914, they have acquired vast tracts of terri-
tory where they are independent: the whole of Arabia; Trans-Jordania,
which was taken away from the original conception of Palestine; Syria,
where again they exercise semi-independent rights. No nation in the
world has so little ground for complaining of what the Germans call
lack of lebensraum as the Arab race. They have vast spaces in which
to expand. They have been amongst the greatest beneficiaries of the
World War, and now they are subject to no particular evils. They are
in no way worse off. In fact, they are in many ways very much better
off than they were twenty or twenty-five years ago.
And what, meanwhile, has happened to the Jews? Did anybody
imagine when Balfour made his Declaration, when we were at war for
four and a half years; when the Treaty nf Versailles and the accompany-
ing treaties were signed, did anybody imagine what was going to
By the RT. HON, ALFRED DUFF COOPER 9
happen in the Continent of Europe in the years to come? Could any-
body, believing in progress, in human nature and in Christian civiliza-
tion, have dreamt of the ghastly, hideous and shocking persecution
that has befallen the Jewish race?
The Burden on Christendom
These events are a shame, an abiding shame, not only upon the
people who are responsible for them, but to some extent upon all
European nations, and indeed upon the whole of Christendom.
For Germany and the Germans, they will constitute a stigma which
that people will not live down for centuries. But for us also, for us who
have stood by and watched, who have expressed in forceful language
our horror and our indignation; but yet have allowed these things to
go on, and have discussed terms and treaties and friendship with the
people who were committing these abominable crimes—for us also,
there is a share, a minor share, to be borne of this great shame.
Ages are remembered, alas, more often, by the crimes that are com-
mitted in them than for the good they bring forth. We speak of the
times of the Spanish Inquisition; we speak of the times of the Emperor
Nero, forgetting all the good, wise men who lived in both those periods,
and all the good things that were done by innumerable human beings.
It may be that in centuries to come people will speak of this age not
as the age of the World War, not as the age of two World Wars, but as
the age of Jewish persecutions. Our descendants will wonder, "What
were our grandfathers like? Could they have been civilized and made
no protest, could they have allowed these things to be and not have
sought some remedy to set them right?"
Promises to Jews Should Be Redoubled
These things being as they are, it seems to me that the claim of the
Jewish people upon Christendom, and upon Great Britain particu-
larly, is far stronger today than it has ever been before, and that any
promises that we made twenty years ago we should wipe out now and
redouble.
We can do that. I believe in all sincerity we can do that without
io
A SOLUTION FOR THE PALESTINE PROBLEM
By the RT. HON. ALFRED DUFF COOPER
11
inflicting any serious injury upon a single Arab. There is so much
suffering in the world today that the little inconvenience, the possible
disappointments, the heart-burnings and the regrets which would be
felt by those against whom the decision went, would seem but a tea-
spoonful in the world's vast sea of sorrows. We should say now to the
Jewish people and to the Arabs, toor
"This small corner of the world from which the Jews came, such a
small corner for such a great people to demand, is going in the future
to be the Jewish home; and there and there only they shall eventually
be sovereign. There they shall decide the numbers of the immigrants
and the conditions of immigration, and for you others who do not
wish it, we are prepared to make every concession and give you every
assurance. We will see that you receive the fairest treatment any
minority could demand. We will see, through a system similar to that
which now exists, of reports to the League of Nations or reports to
Great Britain, or reports to anybody whom you may choose, that you
are fairly treated, and those who wish to leave the land and emigrate,
we will assist to emigrate. We will insure that they have a fresh start in
some part of the Eastern territory, so broad and long, in which they
naturally belong. This is not like moving them to a new continent or
moving them even into a new country, but moving them simply into
territories where Arabs have lived for generations, and where Arabs
and Arabian peoples are living today."
If we were to say this, they should have nothing to fear from that
solution. No man likes to leave his home, but in comparison with the
suffering that is being almost universally inflicted, how little suffering
would be there involved? A few hundreds or thousands perhaps of
people would find new homes under new skies, with assistance, with
care, with aid, and with guarantees. Those on the other hand, who took
what I believe they would find the wiser view, and remained where
they were, would be allowed to share in all the prosperity which would
undoubtedly grow up in Palestine if it were left to the cultivation and
the ruling of the Jewish people.
And so much for the future of the Arabs. What of the future of the
Jews?
It is a dark future for them today. It is almost too terrible to con-
template. For years it has been steadily deteriorating, and the tales
that now reach us, few and fearful out of Poland, make one feel that
it is still getting worse and worse, even when we believe that the worst
had been reached and the bitterness of death was past.
What would be the future? Would it entail simply a Jewish country,
and would the Jews in other countries be alien? Would they feel that
that was their nation, that that was their home, and therefore they
could no longer be loyal subjects of whatever country in which they
lived?
A Fallacious Conception of Zionism
I believe that idea to be profoundly fallacious. The whole trend of
our times should be away from narrow nationalism. And I believe that
this particular question, this question of Zionism, should serve us as
a guide and an indication of the road we should take in international
affairs generally.
At the present time the democratic powers of Western Europe are
engaged in a life and death struggle with the great totalitarian power
of Germany, supported as she is to some extent by the still greater
totalitarian power of Russia. It seems to me that the future will decide
something more important than victory on land or sea, and that there
is a danger, greater perhaps even than defeat in war, greater than hav-
ing our armies smashed and our ships sunk. It is the danger of having
our minds perverted and our souls lost.
There is a danger that even while we win the war, which, incidentally,
I am confident we shall do; even while we defeat the forces of the
enemy on sea, on land and in the air, there is a clanger lest their ideas
may defeat us, and lest we may emerge from the conflict nearer to being
totalitarian powers than we ever were before, having subconsciously
absorbed, while fighting, the very ideas which we are fighting to
destroy. There is a growth in the world today of the spirit that the
state is almighty, that the race is all-important, and of the narrow
autarchic national spirit. Should that triumph in the world, it would
be the greatest of all tragedies. We should not think that because a
12
A SOLUTION FOR THE PALESTINE PROBLEM
man is born o£ a particular race, or because he lives in a particular
territory, that therefore his whole being, his whole mind, should think
merely as the people living in that territory think; and that if his
thoughts stray aside, he is necessarily a traitor to the land he lives in.
That is the doctrine which is being enforced on the unfortunate
German people at this day. They are being told that every man must
think one thing, every man must believe in one leader, every man must
say the same thing, and he must almost say it at the same time as every
other man. That is the degradation of humanity.
The New Spirit — Cooperation
There is another spirit. There is a spirit which believes that a man
should have first and foremost nearest to his own heart his own belief
in what is right and wrong; that after that, he should serve loyally the
country in which he lives, the community to which he belongs, and do
all in his power to render them service both in war and in peace. He
may at the same time feel an especial loyalty to some special race to
which he belongs, something older, possibly, than the land he lives in.
We have many examples of it within our OAvn British Commonwealth
of Nations. For generations in the past the Scottish and the English
people fought one another. It was only 400 years ago that they were
arrayed in battle, the last of many bloody battles against one another,
a long tradition of hatred and enmity. It is all gone. It has disappeared.
It is unthinkable, and yet there is retained among the Scottish people
a profound and deep pride of race. Wherever they go throughout the
world, and there are thousands of Scots in this country, they remain
proud of Scotland. They sing the Scottish songs and tell the Scottish
stories and look after the Scottish poor wherever they find them. But
does anybody in the United States suspect that a man, because he is a
Scotsman, cannot be a loyal American? And if he loves, when he has the
opportunity, to travel across the sea and visit the home of his father
and spend happy days in the old country, does anybody think he is
going there to plot the downfall of the United States?
That is the right spirit which should infuse the new world; the spirit
By the RT. HON. ALFRED DUFF COOPER
»3
that races can mix with one another and yet retain the pride of race;
that they can go forth into new countries and confer great benefits to
those countries by their own methods and the traditions which they
have inherited; and that they can become loyal citizens of that country.
That is the new spirit of cooperation which will have to infuse the new
world unless the world is going to fall into despair and destruction, and
into little autarchic bodies of particular nations fighting against one
another, and occasionally subjecting one another, as today the Germans
are subjecting the Poles and the Czechs, to humiliation and servitude.
Unless that is to be the solution, the other spirit, of mixing with one
another and not being suspicious on the grounds of race, is the one
that must embody the hopes of the new world. In that world I believe
that when the principle that I have suggested is firmly established in
Palestine, when the dream of Zion has come true, there will be Jews
in America, in England, in France, in whatever country you like, who
will be loyal Americans, loyal Frenchmen, loyal Englishmen, and none-
theless loyal because they know that far away, in the ancient land from
which they came, they still have a habitation and an asylum and a home.
THE CHALLENGE OF
INTOLERANCE
By FRANK. MURPHY,
Associate Justice, Supreme Court of the United States
FOR many of the human family, the period we live in is one of
heartbreak and tragedy. Helplessly, the humble, unknown thou-
sands whose only wants are bread and peace, see their homelands over-
run by invading armies, their homes and fields ravaged by the lightning
strokes of war. Life for them is a nightmare of destruction and hate,
too horrible to be believed, if it were not that the harsh farts lie before
their eyes.
In such an era, earnest efforts on the other side of the ledger —
endeavors to find and to build homes for the homeless and oppressed
— must come to all men of good will as a source of cheer and en-
couragement.
To one like myself who was brought up from early childhood to read
and revere the Bible as the Book of books, Palestine is not simply a
distant country, nor are the people who first made it the Holy Land
simply another race. The Land of the Book and the People of the
Book are peculiarly part of the religious heritage of civilized men.
And so it is that your efforts to help build a sanctuary for the harried
and homeless of the Jewish people have a mighty appeal to those of
us of other faiths and races who still find refuge, when the world about
us seems the darkest, in the spiritual teachings of the humble prophets
who dwelt in Zion and in Galilee many centuries ago.
We recall that America itself came into being at the hands of harried
and homeless people, searching for the blessings of peace and freedom.
Remembering their great struggle, we sympathize the more with this
effort of yours to create in Palestine a haven of refuge and a center of
culture where your kith and kin, free from oppression and persecution,
can find life and peace in the land of their forefathers.
14
By MR. JUSTICE PRANK MURPHY
»5
Enlightenment Protects Man's Gains
The forces of enlightenment today are not those which resist all
change or the forces which favor any change. They are, instead, the
forces which seek to achieve, in time, such improvements in the estab-
lished order of things as may be necessary to protect in a moving world
the gains which civilized men through centuries of struggle have
acquired.
That, essentially, Is the aim of the forces of enlightenment, the
forces of religion and true conservatism, without regard to political
partisanship, in this country and other countries where the lamps of
reason have not been extinguished.
But in large sections of the world where the lamps of reason have
gone out or have flickered low, the enlightened effort to improve the
lot of all men has given way to a resurgence of bigotry and intolerance
as cruel and as barbarous as history has ever recorded. And today, as
in the olden time, it is the Jewish people — homeless and so the least
able to defend themselves — who have suffered first and suffered the
hardest. Once again, they have served as the most readily available
scapegoats for those who accept force as their gospel and find virtue
in refusing to be guided by the laws of reason or the laws of God.
Intolerance as a Smokescreen
But the world will make a grave mistake if from these facts it con-
cludes that the revival of intolerance is primarily or peculiarly a Jewish
problem. For already it is apparent that the Jews are serving not
merely as a scapegoat but as a smokescreen to conceal more aggressive
designs of power-mad men. Already those who started out and who
continue to bait the Jews are baiting Protestants and Catholics when-
ever they find that they have the force to succeed and that the loot
makes their effort worthwhile. The worship of force is not only anti-
Jewish, it is anti-Christian, it is a revolt against reason and God.
This is not a lesson for Europe alone, or simply for lands other
than our own. It is a lesson that Americans, also, need to learn and
1.6
THE CHALLENGE OF INTOLERANCE
to carry with them through life as an inseparable part of their citizen-
ship.
For the virus of anti-Semitism has made itself felt here as well as
abroad,
The purveyors of hatred, the provokers of division and strife, the
swaggering apostles of force and violence, are methodically and with
premeditation laboring to bring to the United States the same condi-
tions of group hatred and civil war that have destroyed the peace of
Europe. Treacherously, they camouflage their true nature by repre-
senting themselves to the unwary as defenders of God, America, and
the Constitution. Unscrupulously, they stir up riots in the city streets,
they intimidate peaceful citizens, they invade meetings, and they
peddle as truth the malicious lies which people of their ilk have
invented to blacken those whom they hate.
Some of this professional hate-mongering, government can and will
combat through the laws of the land. But in the main, American
democracy must look for its defense to the wisdom of the people and
their determination not to be led on the paths that have taken other
peoples to communism and fascism.
Not guns nor battleships will ultimately preserve democracy, but the
devotion of a people who have the good sense to realize that intolerance
is no respecter of persons — that once unleashed it has no regard for
religion or race or economic status, or least of all, for that dignity of
the individual which lies at the basis of our civilization. Democracy
in America will be saved if, as a people, we are wise enough to know
that if we do not respect others" faiths, the day may come when other
men will not respect our faiths.
The Refugees—A World Problem
The refugee problem is not a problem of or for any one race or
religion, it is a challenge to civilized man the world over. In helping
to give your people or any people a chance to live a free life in a free
country, we are helping to do our part to preserve justice and liberty
in a civilized world. We arc not merely relieving suffering and distress,
By MR. JUSTICE FRANK MURPHY
*7
we are helping to preserve for ourselves and our posterity those ideas
and spiritual values without which life would be a barren and brutish
thing.
There are some things in this era of transition on which we all
cannot agree — some matters of national policy about which there are
bound to be honest differences of opinion.
But there is one question of policy that should not and must not
divide us. Should it eventually do so, the end of American democracy
will not be far behind.
That policy is the creed of tolerance which for a century and a half
has sustained civil liberty and representative government in this land.
There is no hope for us in turning away from that policy. And those
who preach that we will prosper by doing so preach a black and
destructive doctrine. They preach a doctrine that is the betrayal of
everything that the Fathers of the Republic hoped and planned for.
They preach a philosophy that can bring nothing but hate and misery
and ruin to this nation which has become great only through harmony
and mutual faith among those who built it.
America Founded as a Partnership
America was not built by anti-Semitism, or anti-Protestantism, or
hatred for the Catholics, or by the fantastic doctrines of racial superi-
ority that are practiced elsewhere. America was built to greatness by a
partnership of men and women who represent every race and national-
ity that inhabits the globe. The good things of life that you and I
enjoy we owe not to Catholics alone, or Jews alone, or Englishmen or
Irish alone — we do not owe them to Aryans or non-Aryans alone, or to
white or black alone — we owe them to all God's children of every color
and nation and creed — to all God's children whom He loves each alike
with that same love which "passeth all understanding."
What folly, what awful tragedy, what disloyalty, to talk of dissolving
that God-inspired partnership now when democracy needs it mostl
America's mission is not the propagation of hate. Our mission is
that of helping to prove that only in peace and brotherhood will men
iS THE CHALLENGE OF INTOLERANCE
find happiness on this earth. Our mission is to show that by reasonable
and peaceful means, men of different natures can build a common
security in which justice and liberty are denied to none.
To those who ask if we are worthy of such an errand, let us give the
answer of a nation united in its friendship for those who are oppressed,
disdainful of any who would take away from us the matchless blessing
of our friendship for each other.
PALESTINE AND THE WORLD
JEWISH CRISIS
By DR. ABBA HILLEL SILVER,
National Chairman, United Palestine Appeal
A YEAR ago we met under the sign of a complex of ideas which
have come to be known to history as "Munich." Today we meet
again under the sign of the second World War for which Munich was
the prelude. Between last January and this there stretches a stupefy-
ing year, a vicious and a brutal year of aggressions, invasions and con-
quests finally climaxed by a war which was long dreaded and long
expected.
For our people this last year has been an appalling one in which our
fortunes touched bottom. Disasters piled on one on top of the other.
Jewish persecution widened in area and increased in intensity. To the
shattering tragedies of German and Austrian Jewries there were
added, in the last twelve months, the tragedies of the Jewries of Czecho-
slovakia and Poland. Consequent upon the dissolution of Czechoslo-
vakia another 300,000 Jews were brought under the brutal heel of the
Nazis who promptly proceeded to apply their coldly calculated annihila-
tionist technique against the Jews of that dismembered country. Four
months ago the great Jewish community of Poland, numbering 3,000,000
souls, was swept by fire and sword. This disaster is so recent and so
vast that it cannot even by crystallized in thought. Poland! — that abun-
dant spiritual and intellectual reservoir of our people for centuries, the
home of world-famous Rabbinic academies and scholars, of Chassidism,
the Haskalah, the seed-bed of Hebraic culture, the stronghold of
Zionism from which have gone forth so many thousands as pioneers to
Palestine and so many carriers of Jewish thought and traditions to all
parts of the earth — Poland! — where Jews learned self-government and
self-consciousness to a degree not reached elsewhere — Poland is today
»9
20
PALESTINE AND THE WORLD JEWISH CRISIS
a torn and tortured land under two tyrannies: the one fatal to the
spirit of the Jew, the other to the body and the spirit.
This last year has been a year of flight for our people, a year of
refugees, of stripped and helpless exiles, crowding the highways of the
world, wandering over the face of the earth in quest of refuge and
sanctuary — and finding most doors barred against them. Into exile
have gone myriads of our people, even as their forefathers before them.
From countries and homes where they had known dignity, power and
wealth, Jews, in ever-mounting numbers, have been forced either to
wander forth bewildered and disillusioned into a bewildered and
disillusioned world, or to remain trapped, and doomed to infamy,
degradation and slow starvation.
It has been a year of intensified anti-Semitic agitation everywhere
and of a systematic, cynical and cunning exploitation of Jew-baiting
as a political weapon in the hands of parties, governments and empires.
Altogether, this has been a black year, one of the blackest in our
history, and it climaxes a quarter of a century of mounting calamities.
A Quarter Century of Retreat
For mankind as a whole, this quarter of a century has been one of
tragic retreat in every field of the human spirit. "In the 19th century,"
wrote Victor Hugo, "war will be dead, the scaffold will be dead, hatred
will be dead, frontiers will be dead, royalty will be dead, dogmas will
be dead — man will begin to live\" Here we are in the beginning of the
fifth decade of the 20th century, and war is not dead, the scaffold is not
dead, hatred is not dead, frontiers are not dead, royalty is not dead —
and man is beginning to die. The vista which stretches before our
generation seems to end at the edge of a wilderness. The human spirit
stands today frightened, weighted down with apocalyptic foreboding,
as if awaiting the crash o£ doom.
In this nigh universal blackout for mankind generally and for our
people specifically are there discernible any faint shimmers of light,
any fugitive gleams in the dark, to tell that life is still going on within
the heart of the darkness, to arouse the hope that the creative mind and
By DR. ABBA HILLEL SILVER
21
heart of mankind and of Israel are still bent upon their eternal tasks,
unbroken and undefeated? Or has mankind resigned itself to the domi-
nation of the new barbarism, and has Israel, beaten dumb by prolonged
torment and misery, also resigned itself to calamity and death?
To the discerning eye there are strong indications that neither man-
kind, in its quest for freedom and a decent way of life, nor Israel, in its
quest for freedom and the right to live, has reconciled itself to any such
defeat. The darkness is here, of course, thick and almost impenetrable,
but within that darkness there burn the inextinguishable fires of God!
The challenge which was hurled at civilization by tyranny, brute force
and neo-Paganism has at last been taken up. The eternal, irrepressible
conflict has finally broken out, and this time the free spirit of man is
armored and on the offensive, no longer in retreat, dazed, bewildered
and beguiled. The Empire of insolence and iniquity, which has raged
in all its might and fury and befouled the earth, is now cornered, and
trapped. It is fighting desperately for its mean and savage life. The
outcome of the struggle no one can foresee. But it is greatly heartening
to know that the triumphant march of Medievalism which threatened
to sweep over the entire earth has been checked, and that men, by the
millions, are now mobilized, physically and spiritually, to destroy it.
It is heartening also to know that that loathsome dump of putrefying
propaganda, lies, and race obsessions which the Nazis deposited in the
world, to the incalculable hurt of our people, is fast being cleared away
by the same hands which are set to destroy the Nazi regime itself.
A New Solidarity Forged
For our people there have been two cheering lights in the darkness.
One has been the manifestation of solidarity, group loyalty and respon-
sibility on the part of our people, in all sections and in all parts of the
world. We were not found wanting. A great testing hour did not find
us a small people. Israel responded to the attacks made upon it as
would a living, healthy and sensitive organism. It quickly rallied and
organized, to save, to succor, to defend. The body of our people was
hurt in a thousand places, but its spirit not only remained uncowed
and unbeaten but emerged even stronger, more sensitive, more vibrant.
22
PALESTINE AND THE WORLD JEWISH CRISIS
As ever, the wings of our souls moulted through contact with evil and
suffering. Many afflictions have come upon us in recent years, but not
the greatest of all — the loss of faith in our power of survival, in the
heroic quality of our national destiny and in the essential worth and
dignity of our own lives.
The other light in the all-encircling gloom of our world has been
Palestine. In spite of the impoverishment, persecutions and exhaustion
of recent years which made of the whole household of Israel one vast
hostelry of pain, in spite of the frightful disruption of numerous old
centers of Jewish life, our people was nevertheless able to find within
itself the energy, the courage, the resources and the resourcefulness to
build in Palestine in twenty short years a new and resplendent center
of Jewish life, already the fifth largest Jewish center in the world and
certainly the first and foremost in the richness of its culture and the
vitality of its spirit. The ten thousand evidences given daily in Palestine
of renewal and resurrection, of dead spirit revived, of broken bodies
made whole again, of building upon ruins, of courage, of vision, of
hope, of self-sacrifice are an imperishable epic of splendor, the like of
which our own people or any other people has not written at any time
in its history. If one wishes to see — not to understand, for it is not
within the realm of comprehension — the miracle and the mystery which
is Israel, let him go to Palestine in these very disastrous and war-ridden
days — days of wrath and Golgotha for our people in the Diaspora —
and watch with anointed eyes the undefeated strength, the overarching
confidence, the superb zeal and energy, the social vision and the per-
sonal idealism which are being poured into the work of rebuilding our
national life in our national home. What is being done there and how
it is being done, what common folk, transfigured by an ideal, can achieve
is a tribute not only to our people and to their sires who begot them
but to humanity itself.
Palestine — The Lasting Home
Here a people — resolved to live and not to die — is shouting defiance
to a world bent upon its destruction. Here it is building upon strong
foundations a lasting home to replace the tabernacles which have
"
By DR. ABBA HILLEL SILVER
23
proved so frail and impermanent in so many parts of the earth. Here
hope is restored to men robbed of hope, and pride to the humbled, and
the gift of mission and destiny to those cut off, spiritually dispossessed,
and cast out of all inheritance. Here beauty is given them for ashes,
and the lost kingdoms of both worlds are restored to them.
All this is warm, comforting light in the dark night which has fallen
upon us. The very evils of our day may yet yield their compensations
and redress. Our people is discovering for itself the truth which its wise
but unheeded leaders sought to impress upon it — that in all other lands
we are forever dependent, subject to the life-programs, strategies and
national interests of other peoples. We are nationalized or alienized
at their will. Only in a homeland of our own can we become the artifi-
cers and fashioners of our own destiny.
Our people is also relearning the lesson which some leaders of 0111
people have not learned even to this day — that philanthropy alone,
however generous, is no solution of the Jewish problem. What have
we to show for the vast relief funds spent in Central and Eastern Europe
in the last twenty-five years, for the untold millions which were ex-
pended in those countries for relief and reconstruction? Nothingl
It was necessary work but unavailing as permanent measures of rehabili-
tation. The tragedies of persecution and homelessness which elicited so
much of generous giving from our people in the years immediately
following the World War have now been magnified ten-fold. They have
reached such a stage that even our philanthropy stands baffled and
helpless. Not only because our resources are unequal to the magnitude
of the relief problem, but it is not even allowed to reach the objects of
its solicitude where it could help.
In Palestine We Are Free to Build
Only in Palestine have national expenditures been converted into
permanent national investments. Only in Palestine have relief funds
been converted into constructive achievements. Palestine has a splen-
did, growing and productive Jewish community of over 500,000 souls to
show for the investments in substance and in effort which were made
in it in the last few decades. Only Palestine, of all the countries which
24
PALESTINE AND THE WORLD JEWISH CRISIS
have received financial support from world Jewry, can point to hun-
dreds of new colonies, settlements, villages, towns and cities, to schools,
to colleges, to a university, to a national library, to a medical center, to
a full complement of social agencies and institutions, to a revived
Hebrew language and culture, and to a teeming, vigorous and happy
Jewish life, as evidence of the productive value of such support. And in
Palestine alone we are still free to build, and that in spite of political
restrictions and war conditions.
We are not underestimating the difficulties, nor ignoring the checks
and setbacks in our building work in Palestine. We have encountered
very serious difficulties in recent years — die political dangers of the
White Paper, and the considerable economic derangements caused first
by the disturbances within the country and now by the war. But these
are problems whirh are solvable, and which from time to time confront
every normal nation. In the life of a people success and failure each
casts the shuttle to the other. "It is provided in the essence of things,"
declared the poet Walt Whitman, "that from any fruition of success , . ,
shall come forth something to make a greater struggle necessary." But
the right to struggle and to fight is in itself a supreme privilege of a
free people. In Palestine we possess this privilege.
We are therefore resolved to go forward in our appointed tasks,
undismayed by the terrible plight in which so many of our people find
themselves, undeterred by political frustration, unwearied by the furious
battle which we are forced to fight on so many fronts. We must avoid
the "frantic" approach to our problem, the mood of panic. It was said
of Nero that he could tune his harp well, but in government lie always
wound up the strings too high, or let them down too low. As a people,
we must guard ourselves against these dangers. Strong nerves, stout
hearts, cool heads and willing hands are what we need — and unending
faith.
A people that wishes to avoid servitude must learn to fight — but
without discipline, organization, sound strategy and cool courage no
battle is ever won!
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